These days many people claim to be atheists. What is an atheist? Are you one?

Atheism is the belief
that there is no God. It is different from agnosticism, which is the position that
you don't know whether there is a God. Agnosticism is a suspension of judgment;
atheism is a type of belief. Atheist belief may be certain (a belief that there definitely
is no God) or merely probable (a belief that there probably is no God).

To decide who is an atheist, you first have to know what the word "God" means.
What exactly is it that the atheists are denying?

This question is not easy as it seems. The problem is that there are many different ideas
of God in human thought. Serious, informed thinkers (and some less serious and informed ones as
well) have held a spectrum of different ideas about God.
The mental picture of God that you grew up with is not the only possible idea of God.

Some atheists seem to think that the only idea of God is the Biblical idea, and that the
word "God" means a supernatural creator of the world. Although many people believe in this
idea of God, those who regard it as a definition of the
word "God" are on the wrong track. Some philosophers have arrived, through reason, at ideas of God that can be true even if there
is nothing supernatural. Some religions have taught that God is not the creator.
According to some concepts of God, God is not very humanlike, and is not even what we usually think
of as a "person." I've written elsewhere (here,
here
and here) about various
ideas of God, so I won't try to list all the ideas again here.

What do all these ideas of God have in common? The differences can be great. However,
most ideas of God (at least most of the well-thought-out ones) have a common core. In one way or another, most
of these ideas portray God as a greatest possible being. They depict God as a being
or reality that is greater, better, or more perfect than anything else. What is more,
these ideas portray God as having mindlike properties of some kind - mental, spiritual, or moral properties.
These ideas don't just equate God to something physical, like matter or energy. Instead,
they portray God as being a bit more like a "someone" than a mere "something." This is
true even of ideas that deny that God is a "person" in the usual sense of the word.

Pantheism is one form of belief in God that is different from the supernatural-creator idea.
In its basic version, pantheism equates God to nature or to the physical universe. Some critics claim that pantheism is only a disguised form of atheism,
but they are wrong about this. Some forms of pantheism
might amount to atheism, but other forms amount to a
real belief in God. However, pantheism is not the only possible form of belief in God that
denies that God is a supernatural creator. As I pointed out elsewhere, there are
other such beliefs. (See here and here.)

The God of real religious thought is very different from the
"God" of Biblical fundamentalism. The God of the fundamentalists is a very humanoid,
and sometimes very mean, fellow who makes a habit of violating the laws of nature.
Other, more reasonable religious thinkers long ago rejected this idea of God.
Some of these other thinkers still consider God a supernatural creator - but that
isn't the most important part of their understanding of God. These believers
could continue believing in God even if it turned out
that God was not a supernatural creator.

Some atheists try to define "God" as a supernatural creator of the universe. Then they try
to debunk God by proving there is no supernatural creator. The big problem with this line of argument is that it doesn't tell us much
about God! At most, it hits one concept of God: the idea that God is a supernatural creator.
Even if this atheistic line of argument worked, it would not disprove God. At most, it would disprove
the supernatural-creator concept of God. Some sincere believers in God rejected this concept long ago -
but they didn't have to give up believing in God.

The atheist trick of defining God as a supernatural creator pins the
"atheist" label on anyone who accepts a different idea of God.
By claiming that God must be a supernatural creator, the atheists are playing with
words. They are defining into
existence a whole bunch of "atheists" who might not be atheists at all. This atheist ploy
is much like defining the word "dog" to include the concept of being lime green in color. Once you buy into
that definition, you can say that lime green dogs are the only real dogs - and anyone who
disbelieves in lime green dogs is actually a disbeliever in dogs. (This covers a lot of people,
even people who have dogs, because lime green dogs are rather easy to disbelieve in.)

It's easy to label anyone an "atheist"
if they disagree with your particular idea of God. However, the fact that you have
stopped believing in the Bible, in religion, or in the supernatural isn't enough to make you an atheist. You don't
have to become an atheist just because you don't believe in these things.
There is another option:
rethink your idea of God - and think for yourself.

Some people who think about religion call themselves "atheists" just because they don't believe in a supernatural
creator. If that describes you, then you might not really be an atheist at all!